Sunday, June 21, 2009

Blessed Summer Solstice!

Today is the Summer Solstice, the day of the year which has the longest daylight. Imagine how the ancients celebrated having so much light! The Dark Time of the Year was Winter Solstice, the day which was "the birth of the Sun", when the Sun began increasing in the number of hours it appeared to warm the cold places. Nowadays, our Sun heats our places and summer weather seems longer while winter season seems milder than when I was younger. Even living in the mountains.

To me, the solstices represent extremes: the most or least number of hours of daylight. This certainly seems appropriate this year. Often life in general seems to be on the edge... of disaster or breakthrough. While I'm very thankful for all of our blessings and abundance, I am also aware of the fragility of every aspect of our lives.

I have quoted Donna Henes' book Celestially Auspicious Occasions before, and I will do so again, because I think she says it so well:

The seasonal ascent of light and temperature is not -- despite popular belief -- due to our distance from the sun, but to the degree of directness of its rays. It would be logical... to assume that in the summer the earth approaches closest to the sun, and that we are farthest away in the cold dark of winter. Wrong! The earth reaches its perihelion, the point on our orbit that brings us closest to the sum, in winter (usually around Jan 2 or 3); and conversely, during summer (July 5 or so) we attain our aphelion, the farthest reach of our range from the sun.

Though the distance from the sun is greatest in the summer, it is at the Summer Solstice that the sun sits highest in the sky. The steep path of its rays is angled vertically overhead. Its energy is aimed arrowlike straight down on us.

The Summer Solstice is the height of the glory of the season of the sun. It is at this point that the dark must begin to creep back.... For several days before beginning its descent, the sun stands sentinel at dawn. It seems to stand stark still in the sky, which is what solstice means: "sun stands still". (Just) As we celebrate the birth of the brand-new sun at the Winter Solstice, wesalute its vibrant maturity at the solstice in the summer.

In megalithic times, people began to create structures that would enable them to track the course of the sun, the source of life. These solar observatories were specifically designed to give precise determination of the days of the solstices... that are the times of greatest extreme. It was necessary to calculate the longest summer day, since it serves as a signal light, a warning sign for changes in light and weather to come.

Indigenous Europeans... built many such sun shrines. Stonehenge, the most famous standing stone circle, has its main axis in perfect alignment with the Summer Solstice sunrise. Strikingly similar monuments to the movements of the heavens were built by the ancestors of the tribes of the Great Plains of the northern US and Canada... positioned in exact orientation to the solstice sunrise. There are more than 50 knowing medicine wheels, some dating back 2,500 years.

Summer Solstice is a holyday celebrated with fire and flame. Bonfires are lit in honor of the sun, perhaps the most universal of the celebrations. It is the ultimate act of flattery by imitation.... And at the same time, the light and heat of the fire serve to soothe and affirm that, though departing, the sun will surely return.

In ancient Egypt, the Summer Solstice was celebrated by the Burning of the Lamps in honor of Isis, Queen of Heaven. In Rome, the day was dedicated to Vesta, known as Hestia in Greece... guardians of the public hearth and altar. The Norse goddess Sol, Sul, or Sulis drove the chariot of the sun. Ancient Buddhist texts speak of the sun chariot as the Great Vehicle or the Chariot of Fire. The ancient Greeks pictured the Sun carried across the daytime sky in a golden chariot steered by Apollo (Artemis' twin brother; she was goddess of the Moon and the hunt).

The Hopi Summer Solstice ceremony perfectly describes this seasonal shift in terms of a transferal of our spiritual reliance on divine illumination to the realization of our own personal response-ability.

In the Dakota tribe, the Sun Dance was the most powerful observance of the year. According to Russell Means, a leader of the American Indian Movement and a survivor of the armed occupation at Wounded Knee in 1973 on the site of the Pine Ridge Reservation massacre of 1890, during the Sun Dance "we want to get in touch with the female, so we create purification ceremonies for boys and men to bring us to an understanding of what it is like to give birth.... During those four days and nights we do not eat or drink water so we can try to begin to understand the suffering of pregnancy.... On the fourth day we pierce our chests, maybe even our backs, to understand the pain and the giving of flesh and blood the woman goes through.

(Russell Means is also an actor who has played in many movies, including The Last of the Mohicans as the Mohawk father Chingachgook.)

Summer Solstice is a time of fertility and abundance (in the Northern Hemisphere, that is). The green of the plant world around us is riotous, as are the sounds of insects, birds, chicks, and thunderstorms. The heat and the rain collaborate to encourage astounding growth. The plants grow, luxuriating in the hothouse created by the weather and the insects feed on the plants and the birds feed on the seeds and the insects. It is the circle of life: birth, growth, decline, and rebirth.

I have found for myself and with friends that our lives often feel overwhelming and overabundant at this time of year. I think this is a reflection of the natural cycle going on around us. I also think that right now, there is so much going on in the un-natural world (based upon man-made decisions, changes, cultural habits, etc.) that it creates a chaos that all of us (human, animal, etc.) feel energetically, at a subtle but powerful level. Just watch the news or read the headlines and feel how your body is responding. Conversely, light a candle and sit and breathe quietly and notice how your body feels. Fragmentation vs. focus.

I hope you have had a chance to enjoy the sun and the peak of the light today.

RUMI-nations

Astronomy Picture of the Day

About Me

I am a multi-media 3-D artist living in Western North Carolina. Ever since playing in my grandmother's button box as a child, I have delighted in color, shape, and texture. I grew up surrounded by my grandmother's and mother's needlework and handcrafts, and many of these pieces are in my home today. My mother taught me to embroider, knit, and sew before I entered high school.
Spending time in Nature has also been a major influence on me. Nature "speaks" to me through Her seasons and creations, and most of my artwork is an attempt to represent Her beauty.
Julia Cameron, in her book "The Artist's Way", stated that creativity is a connection to spirituality, and this is true for me. I love the process of creating even more than the product. I am thankful and privileged to participate in this process, and it brings me great joy.
I believe that everyone should feel this joy of self-expression. That's why I have designed and facilitate playshops, so that participants can overcome self-limiting beliefs and dive deeply into their pool of inner creativity.